I recently read Freedom by Jonathan Franzen http://www.blogger.com/imhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifg/blank.gif and Day by Day Armageddon by JL Bourne.
For the first 300 pages I thought Freedom had gotten robbed by not getting a Pulitzer. It had the deepest, richest characters I'd ever read about and as the book went on, I thought characters besides Patty would develop. They did, but by the time the thinly plotted book was over, you knew the rest of the family but you didn't. Or you just didn't like them, and the plot that seemed to have been thrown in when Franzen realized all he had was 300 pages of Patty and the people she knew, he put in a half-baked plot about environmentalism and population with an anti-climax of protecting birds while selling out to strip mining coal conglomerates (and being used in the process but not realizing until too late).
I'm not sure how Franzen could have gotten out of the character web that was the most interesting part of the book (and those 300 pages DID need to be published as they are brilliantly written) but I doubt I'm the only one unsatisfied with the second half of the book.
Day by Day Armageddon is an incredibly fun bubble gum of a book. It's great to chew on for a while but provides no nutritional substance, which is a great part of its charm. The book is written as a diary of a military pilot trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. He's a character perfectly suited to ride it out and going along for the ride is a hell of a lot of fun. The literary equivalent of an amusement park roller coaster, I felt like the character is the type I'd be if the time did come to build my bunker and stock up on canned goods. I can't wait for the sequel, which was just published.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Bowled over...ha!
Last week Megan and I went to Plymouth Middle School to eat some soup and buy a couple of bowls. It was a fundraiser for the Seven Dreams Foundation which serves the seven communities in the area. The fundraiser raised money for hunger relief, which is something we feel passionate about (it kills me if I think about kids going to bed hungry). Here's some news coverage of the event from Patch.com (including a quote from me) and a photo of our bowls above.
We also met Mayor Linda Loomis, who seems like a really nice lady (although our conversation was cut short since she was sitting right next to the speakers when the band was doing a sound check).
Monday, April 25, 2011
Golden Vallye's newest resident
Everyone, meet Maggie, the newest resident of Golden Valley. Based on less than 24 hours of observation, she enjoys walks, is afraid of the cat, and tries to steal breakfast sandwiches if they are left on coffee tables. You'll see she's also a Hawkeye fan! She's pretty awesome and we're really happy to have her in our house.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The Long Walk...or, why Stalin was a dick
I recently finished The Long Walk, the story of a handful of dudes in the late 1930s/early 40s who were sentenced to decades of hard labor in Siberian prison camps. And they escaped. It's also been turned into a movie but the director took license, apparently, because no one actually ate anyone on the trip. Which is both good and bad, I guess.
Also, apparently the dude didn't actually escape, he was set free, which I didn't know until two seconds ago when I glanced at the Christian Science Monitor article linked above. I'm totally re-thinking my review now.
Anyway, the book was a really interesting story, but a very mediocre read. The story is basically a play-by-play of a long march to Siberia (two weeks on a train, a couple of months marching to the prison camp), then time in the prison camp preparing to escape, then escaping, then they walked and starved, killed some wild squirrels, snakes and stuff, made friends in Tibet, were rescued in India after almost dying in the Himalayas. While fascinating to read at the time, the book itself read more like the run-on sentence above.
Wikipedia has a bit more info on the debunking.
So, while somewhat interesting, this is a book to avoid.
Also, apparently the dude didn't actually escape, he was set free, which I didn't know until two seconds ago when I glanced at the Christian Science Monitor article linked above. I'm totally re-thinking my review now.
Anyway, the book was a really interesting story, but a very mediocre read. The story is basically a play-by-play of a long march to Siberia (two weeks on a train, a couple of months marching to the prison camp), then time in the prison camp preparing to escape, then escaping, then they walked and starved, killed some wild squirrels, snakes and stuff, made friends in Tibet, were rescued in India after almost dying in the Himalayas. While fascinating to read at the time, the book itself read more like the run-on sentence above.
Wikipedia has a bit more info on the debunking.
So, while somewhat interesting, this is a book to avoid.
Friday, March 11, 2011
This is what it takes to win a Pulitzer
No, not this blog (although if someone wants to give me a trophy for my awesomeness, I will proudly accept it!). I'm talking about the book I just read, All the King's Men. I saw it at the library and realized it was one of those books I had always had in the back of my head but had never picked up (like most of the list of Pulitzer winners, for that matter...more on that later). And I'm very, very glad that I did.
From the minute I read the opening pages, Penn transported me back to Dust Bowl Louisiana, driving in a big, oversized Cadillac with The Boss, Willie Stark. Driving past dirt farms on a brand new road, built with Willie Stark's strongarm tactics, sweat beading on the back of your neck as you wipe it away with a kerchief, light an unfiltered cigarette with a Zippo lighter, the butane lingering on your fingers. Governor Willie Stark talking in a slow, syrupy, southern drawl in the front seat, poor Louisiana Depression-era farmers slowly watching on the side of the road...
Fast forward several chapters to descriptions of the South's rich and elite. You can see Anne Stanton's tennis skirt flowing as she casually plays the ball back and forth with her brother Adam, the future doctor, or Jack Burden, who will always be in love with her. You can hear the wind pushing the magnolia trees around, feel the humidity of the summer in the south surround you as they sit holding hands, each wishing they were gutsy enough to do more than just hold hands.
And of course, there's politics. In the south, there's always politics. The Boss admits that people have their hands in his pockets, but it's ok because he's got his hands in theirs. And yeah, people may be taking graft and be corrupt, but it wasn't anything Willie couldn't handle, and, at least in the book, he's probably right.
What struck me, though, was comparing it to today's climate. Business was mad at Willie because he increased the lease rates for coal fields, he increased taxes to pay for health care, he held businesses and contractors to standards to make sure buildings were safe to walk in. And 80 years later, business is making the same arguments (don't tax the job creators, don't regulate us, the unions are killing us). And there's no one like The Boss coming to stand up to them, unfortunately for us.
My favorite section was the trip west after Burden found out about Anne. I moved to Denver in the mid-90s and remember my friend Nick and I having conversations about 'The West.' Robert Penn Warner summed that time up better than I ever could have:
"For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down the blade in your hand and the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the side of the empire. It is where you go when you hear that that's gold in them-thar hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go."
Nick and I spent hours talking about 'the west' and Penn summed it up for us in one paragraph.
Regarding Pulitzer winners, I'm considering reading all of them in order, beginning with "His Family" by Earnest Poole (1918) and ending up with "Tinkers" by Paul Harding (2010). I don't think I'd do it in one stretch, though...I'm sure I'd need something mindless like Stephen King to break things up. I'll keep y'all posted.
From the minute I read the opening pages, Penn transported me back to Dust Bowl Louisiana, driving in a big, oversized Cadillac with The Boss, Willie Stark. Driving past dirt farms on a brand new road, built with Willie Stark's strongarm tactics, sweat beading on the back of your neck as you wipe it away with a kerchief, light an unfiltered cigarette with a Zippo lighter, the butane lingering on your fingers. Governor Willie Stark talking in a slow, syrupy, southern drawl in the front seat, poor Louisiana Depression-era farmers slowly watching on the side of the road...
Fast forward several chapters to descriptions of the South's rich and elite. You can see Anne Stanton's tennis skirt flowing as she casually plays the ball back and forth with her brother Adam, the future doctor, or Jack Burden, who will always be in love with her. You can hear the wind pushing the magnolia trees around, feel the humidity of the summer in the south surround you as they sit holding hands, each wishing they were gutsy enough to do more than just hold hands.
And of course, there's politics. In the south, there's always politics. The Boss admits that people have their hands in his pockets, but it's ok because he's got his hands in theirs. And yeah, people may be taking graft and be corrupt, but it wasn't anything Willie couldn't handle, and, at least in the book, he's probably right.
What struck me, though, was comparing it to today's climate. Business was mad at Willie because he increased the lease rates for coal fields, he increased taxes to pay for health care, he held businesses and contractors to standards to make sure buildings were safe to walk in. And 80 years later, business is making the same arguments (don't tax the job creators, don't regulate us, the unions are killing us). And there's no one like The Boss coming to stand up to them, unfortunately for us.
My favorite section was the trip west after Burden found out about Anne. I moved to Denver in the mid-90s and remember my friend Nick and I having conversations about 'The West.' Robert Penn Warner summed that time up better than I ever could have:
"For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the old-field pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down the blade in your hand and the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the side of the empire. It is where you go when you hear that that's gold in them-thar hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go."
Nick and I spent hours talking about 'the west' and Penn summed it up for us in one paragraph.
Regarding Pulitzer winners, I'm considering reading all of them in order, beginning with "His Family" by Earnest Poole (1918) and ending up with "Tinkers" by Paul Harding (2010). I don't think I'd do it in one stretch, though...I'm sure I'd need something mindless like Stephen King to break things up. I'll keep y'all posted.
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